Ride On: The LUSH Bikes

The great thing about these bikes…other than the priceless, state of the art, air conditioning money can’t buy? It’s the story where they came from and how they were born. It all went down 2 years ago... in 2010.

The Green Team at that time (Eco warriors-represent), we were on a mission to do something epic. During this time we were also in talks with Bullfrog Power (a green energy provider) to become our power provider. So an energy challenge was ignited for NA Manufacturing, Distribution and Head Office locations on the East and West coasts. Both locations battled it out for three months to see who could reduce the most energy used on each coast.

In return I had submitted a proposal around the same time for us to promote the use of pedal power at work. Utilizing pedal bikes to commute between buildings for meetings, etc. So, this would actually become the award for the challenge. It was a three month challenge to reduce our energy consumption by 15% and save 21.55 TONNES of Co2, which is equal to 10 long haul flights a year!

After a bunch of “flick-offs” and “plug-outs”, both coasts surpassed the goal of the challenge. Sticking to the green theme and proposal, we were awarded a couple of sweet pedal bicycles for our results on the West Coast.

These bikes were purchased locally from an organization called Our Community Bikes/ The Pedal Foundation, a non-profit organization (in Vancouver, BC) that takes donated bikes and refurbish them back to working condition. The refurbishing is solely done by volunteers, who in return, get free knowledge on bicycle maintenance.

LUSH Involvement with PEDAL Foundation

PEDAL Foundation gives away 10 bikes every month in the community to folks who can't afford a bike. Besides the purchase of the 2 refurbish bikes, staff who are interested, will volunteer their time at PEDAL to help repair the giveaway bikes, leading up to the donation. It's a cool concept- in order for someone to be able to part-take in the giveaway, they need to complete a series of stripping...umm...tires, chains, frames, etc. THEN they can be able to move on to the final stage, which is building the giveaway bikes from scratch. This takes volunteering to the next level- not only do you get a free education on bike maintenance, but you will also pride yourself in knowing you help built a bike that was given to someone who is forever grateful.